Page | SEC basketball impossible to watch

• Kentucky at Tennessee, 9 p.m. Tuesday, TV: ESPN, Radio: WHAS-840

LEXINGTON, Ky. – I asked Dominique Hawkins, do you watch other games in the league?

"You mean like the NBA?" the Kentucky senior guard said.

No, the Southeastern Conference.

"Nah, I don't. I watch NBA games though," he said.

Even for SEC standards of stink, Dom missed most of an awful smelling performance on Saturday. Four of the top five teams lost and three of those were inexcusable and embarrassing.

I'll give South Carolina a pass because it fell at Rupp Arena and was without key guard PJ Dozier. But still, Kentucky beat the second-best team in the league by 16 points without De'Aaron Fox for most of the game (injured ankle) and with Isaiah Briscoe at his absolute worst (first time without scoring, career-high seven turnovers).

Florida lost at home to a Vanderbilt team that has a losing record (9-10, 3-4).

Georgia blew a nine-point lead with 1:51 to play at Texas A&M and lost by a point after a clock malfunction provided a good distraction for the fact that the Bulldogs botched crunch time and the final possession.

Alabama lost by 20 at Auburn.

Of all the teams not named Kentucky fighting for a berth in the NCAA tournament or a respectable bracket seed, only Arkansas won, at home against lowly LSU (9-9, 1-6).

"There was a lot of stuff that happened in our league today, crazy," UK coach John Calipari said.

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Look, I understand it's hard to win on the road and this is sports, so sometimes you drop a game at home that you shouldn't or the clock stops running and you miss out on a chance to win at the buzzer.

I also don't blame Hawkins for not watching or if UK fans don't care what happens outside of Lexington. In his eighth season at Kentucky, Calipari is 102-25 against SEC teams and twice has run the league table without a loss. Ken Pomeroy's percentages say Calipari and the Cats should go undefeated again. Of the remaining 11 league games, Kentucky has at least a 79 percent chance to win in all but one (at Florida in two weeks, still favored by two points)

So go ahead, keep resisting the urge to check the SEC standings. It doesn't matter. League pride is hard to muster when only three teams are on pace to make the tournament.

Four things, though, about Kentucky's bid for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament and the coveted Indianapolis launch pad of a first-second round destination.

1. This weekend's matchup with Kansas is crucial. It's a final marquee opponent at home (the Wildcats lost to UCLA at Rupp earlier this season) and there's no other "wow" wins left to be had for Kentucky. Kansas, also projected as a No. 1 seed, will play Baylor twice and West Virginia after the Jan. 28 showdown at Rupp. Kentucky has nobody remaining on the schedule that can sub in for a loss to Kansas.

2. Calipari says every game for Kentucky is - wait for it - somebody's Super Bowl, but get ready for the annual stretch of desperate and hungry foes in February. The Wildcats play Georgia and Florida twice. The Bulldogs are perpetually on the bubble and haven't had a real quality NCAA tournament resume win since, when, two seasons ago? And the Gators are sliding down the ranks of the respected after consecutive losses. For every SEC team, Kentucky represents a chance for a win that matters. In this league, there aren't many of those left on the schedule.

3. What happened in November and December matters. That's when the Wildcats earned their two best victories (according to RPI), over North Carolina and Michigan State on neutral courts, and that's not changing, at least until the matchup with Florida. That's also when Kentucky lost to UCLA and Louisville, two opponents that help Kentucky's strength of schedule (rated eighth), opponent strength of schedule (third) and RPI (third).

4. For Kentucky, what is the point of the conference tournament in Nashville? You know how this will go. The first-round game will be a waste of time and hopefully nobody gets hurt. The second round will be against a team in must-win-to-get-in mode. The finals will provide a rematch with South Carolina or Florida.

Who is interested in any of that?

Unfortunately, poor Hawkins will have to watch or play in all of it.